Page 99 of Skyshade
She rushed to him, and he bent his head low to brush it against hers, sending her flying back, against Lynx, who grumbled.
He too, however, looked pleased to see Wraith flying again.
She turned to Grim, and her smile slowly shrank. “What is it?”
“Another gravesite has been ransacked. Worse than before.”
The augur’s words were fresh on her mind as she said, “Take us there.”
He did. They landed in front of a gravesite.
Isla’s mouth went dry. She didn’t dare say a word.
The graves hadn’t just been desecrated...they had been raided.
“The bones are gone,” Astria said. She had been waiting in the clearing.
The holes were empty. Barren.
She could almost hear the augur’s pealing laughter echoing through her skull. “Terra and Poppy. Are they still imprisoned?” she asked Grim.
He nodded.
“Take me to them.”
The prison was on an island off the coast of Nightshade. Large waves crashed against its exterior. One side had windows, the other did not. Guilt stabbed her through the stomach, knowing this is where she had sent her guardians.
They were led in front of her, still restrained. The prison itself had been built thousands of years before, from glimmering shademade metal. No power could be used inside, so they had been brought outside, to her.
Poppy looked afraid. Terra looked murderous.
Isla had sworn to herself she wouldn’t use Oro’s power, but she had to know. She had to be sure. She closed her eyes. Reached for the connection.
Part of her wondered if it wouldn’t be there. Part of her hoped it wouldn’t.
But, clear as a beam of sunlight, she felt it in her bones.
She grabbed onto it.
“Tell me again,” she said slowly. “Tell me again all that you did not do.”
Terra looked ready to gut her, but she said, “We did not destroy the nightbane. We did not desecrate any graves. And,” her voice was clear as day, “we did not kill your parents.”
Poppy repeated the words.
Isla waited to feel the bitter taste of a lie on her tongue. She readied to feel it like poison in her veins.
It did not come.
They were telling the truth.
Isla didn’t know what to believe—what to feel. Her sanity was unwinding within her. Everything she had believed to be true was a lie. She had locked up her guardians, and they had been innocent. She no longer trusted her own judgment.
It was the middle of the night when she turned slowly in the sheets, next to Grim. His wide chest was bare, illuminated by a sliver of moonlight peeking through the curtain they had rushed to close when Grim had grabbed her on her way out of the bath.
She carefully moved his arm from her waist and left the bed. Her steps were quiet, careful, but Grim awoke anyway. “Hearteater?” he asked quietly, his voice thick with sleep.
“I’ll be right back,” she told him, and headed into the bathroom. She waited until his breaths slowed again.
